Adaptation and Validation of the Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool (SPICT): A Quantitative Methodological Study.

AIMS

To translate the Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool (SPICT) into Chinese and conduct preliminarily tests of its performance in hospitalized patients with cancer.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional validation study conducted from January to March 2024.

METHODS

SPICT 2022 was translated in both directions, following the Brislin translation model, and the Chinese version culturally debugged through expert consultation and pre-testing. Content validity was evaluated by expert scoring. Tool internal consistency was evaluated using KR-20 coefficient, and retest reliability was evaluated using kappa coefficient. The screening performance was evaluated by sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV).

RESULTS

Of 388 hospitalized cancer patients included, approximately one-quarter had potential palliative care needs. Content validity of the Chinese version of SPICT was good, as were internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Accuracy (0.905), sensitivity (0.806), specificity (0.943), PPV (0.845), and NPV (0.926) for the Chinese version of SPICT indicated that it is an acceptable instrument.

CONCLUSION

The Chinese version of SPICT can be applied for screening of palliative care needs in hospitalized patients with cancer in China.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION AND/OR PATIENT CARE: The Chinese version of SPICT had been adapted to assist clinicians or nurses in quickly identifying hospitalized patients with cancer who may have palliative care needs. This is conducive to help clinical team to start palliative care consultation, care goal discussion and (or) referral for patients in clinical practice. And it probably helps to advance integration between palliative care assessment and routine oncology care assessment.

IMPACT

This study provided a screening tool for palliative care, with good validity and reliability, as well as excellent screening performance to facilitate palliative care need screening in clinical practice, promote palliative care referrals and improve patient quality of life.

REPORTING METHOD

This study was reported according to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

No patient or public contribution.